Breaking Protocol Read online

  Lowering his head, his dark eyes glittering with undisguised desire, he pressed his lips against the tender swell of her breast, his tongue swirling moist circles around the erect nipple. “Mmmm,” he murmured before taking it into his mouth. Tiny whimpers of pleasure burst from her lips as his fingers once again began their wondrous magic between her thighs.

  Just as he was about to send her over the center field wall, he stopped his magnificent manipulations, eliciting from her a hoarse cry of confusion, “What the...”

  Devastated, her breathing sharp and ragged, she trembled and tensed against him as the rising crest subsided and settled into a dull pulsing ache. He braced himself over her, adjusting his hips into the soft cradle of her thighs, the fleshy head of his penis nudging her apart, easing into her with a steady pressure she found maddeningly slow and provoking. She clutched at his tightening butt muscles, forcing him into her, stretching her to the edge where pleasure and pain joined as one.

  “Such impatience,” he said with a husky chuckle as he withdrew and plunged again, stroking deeper and harder until together they developed a sensuous rhythm of profound shared satisfaction.

  The previous climb to ecstasy had been slow and steady, and she had been all but ready for its coming. When it had been denied, she eagerly grappled to find that rapturous place once more. The second time came swiftly and took her by surprise, seizing her within its wondrous grasp. She gasped and cried out as her body trembled and quaked beneath him. As the climax concluded, she pressed her body against him, allowing the pleasant pulsing aftershocks to ripple around him as he continued to seek his own explosive finish with steadily quicker, demanding strokes. A husky cry punctuated one final penetrating thrust, and she felt him spasm and release inside her.

  He withdrew and collapsed beside her, his breath hot and panting against her damp flesh, his limbs still tangled with hers. She welcomed the solid bulk of his body pressed against hers in this most personal, intimate manner that two people could experience. It was this close connection after sex that pleasured her almost as much as the act itself.

  She shifted to better situate her body against his and turned to face him. She studied each rugged feature, visibly tracing the path of jagged scars running from temple to jaw. Her fingers took their cue from her eyes and they touched the facial scars with renewed fascination. “Now be honest with me, Riggs. Can you think of a better way to spend a stormy day?”

  His breathing had reduced itself to a deep and steady rhythm, and if she hadn’t looked to see that his eyes were still open she would have guessed him to be already asleep.

  “No, not right off hand,” he finally murmured, low and husky, as he kissed a place near her hairline where damp tendrils clung against her temple. Repositioning himself, he pressed his back against the wall to give her a little more room to move on the narrow bunk barely big enough for one adult, let alone two.

  “Uh, Piper, there’s something that we really need to discuss.”

  “Can’t it wait?” she fairly purred, pressing her pouty mouth against his sweat-dampened chest as she scattered moist kisses from collarbone to rib cage. Upon discovering a tiny male nipple hiding in the nest of chest hair, she took it into her mouth and teased it with teeth and tongue into a rosy-brown knot.

  * * *

  Carter could barely contain the fiery ache tugging at him as he extricated himself from her sweet arousing agony. “No,” he gasped, teetering on the edge of insanity. “It can’t.”

  She raised her head and cast him a ponderous glance. Her eyes widened with concern as she fingered the hard set to his clenched jaw. “What is it?”

  “Are you on the pill?”

  “Is that what all this is about?” Piper sighed with blissful relief at hearing the reason behind his distress, and she smoothed her hand across his furrowed forehead and down the scarred side of his face. “Relax...I’ve got it covered.”

  The breath he’d been holding exploded from his chest. It flowed across her face like a sudden warm breeze on a still summer night. “Was I that obvious?”

  “Just a leftover reaction from your teen years?” she teased.

  He barked a laugh. “I was never this careless as a teenager. From the time I was fourteen, I never went anywhere without a condom tucked into my wallet just in case I encountered some sweet thing willing to give me a tumble.”

  “Fourteen?” she reiterated, wide-eyed. “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be,” he said on a wistful note. “It took me nearly three years to take the damn thing out of my wallet. Of course by then it shredded like a piece of ancient rice paper in my fumbling fingers. Nobody bothered to tell me they had expiration dates. Talk about a mood breaker.”

  Piper collapsed against him in a fit of giggles. He tucked his hand beneath the gentle swell of her breast and slowly rubbed his thumb back and forth across the nipple in a lazy, no-hurry manner she found maddening. She retaliated by finding his nipple again and worked it with her lips, sucking gently until he arched back and drew a hissing breath.

  When he couldn’t bear another second of her delightful torment, he positioned himself over her and wedged his knee between her legs, urging them apart with very little resistance. There would be no need for preparation; she was still silky slick and amply stretched from the first time. He slipped into her with an easy grace and began to move with a methodical pace too slow to bring her to more than a pleasurable twinge that never quite reached a higher level of arousal. He cupped her hips, his thumbs slipping beneath the braided gold chain that draped below her waist just beneath the graceful dip of her navel. The weight of the dangling medallion thumped against her hip in rhythm with each penetrating thrust.

  It was wonderful torment, and she embraced each smooth, exquisite stroke, but she wanted so much more. She wanted him to take her to that magical place again, but no matter how hard she attempted to incite him to pick up the pace, he backed off, denying them both the satisfaction of reaching orgasm.

  Frustration filled her whimpered cries, desperate fingers clutched at his back in an effort to pull him deeper into her. It was only after torturing her for what seemed like hours beyond infinity did he finally adjust his hips and thrust into her at a deeper, more satisfying angle. It didn’t take but a few better-positioned strokes to carry her to another all-consuming, world-rocking climax. She bucked and arched into his final thrusts and filled the tiny room with a wild scream of completion.

  He responded to her vocal satisfaction with a husky, rumbling chuckle as he reached his own orgasmic plateau. Once the aftershocks subsided, she struggled to find her equilibrium and discovered it was nowhere to be found.

  Wrapping her into his sinewy arms, their bodies moist with sweet, sexy sweat and their breathing hoarse and panting, he curled his body around her, snugging her back and butt into the planes of his chest and thighs.

  Relaxed to the point of boneless immobility, she mumbled, “Damn, Riggs, where’d you learn to do that?”

  “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” His voice was a teasing whisper that prickled the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

  “I’m not sure that you didn’t,” she retorted with a breathy chuckle. “At the very least, le petit mort, a little death, as the French would say.” She snuggled deeper into the bend of his legs in an effort to keep their connection as tight as possible. His warmth was comforting, reassuring, and she settled into a state of contentment she rarely achieved.

  “It was pretty spectacular,” he agreed. “In any language.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Ummm,” he sighed. His hand rested on her hip, his fingertips flexing and pressing into her bare flesh much like a contented cat kneading a favorite cushion in preparation for a nap. Every so often his fingers would catch on her gold belly chain and he’d fiddle with the links for a moment before moving on. W
ith every movement he made, the attached pendant slid and shifted down the chain until the weight of it settled low against her belly.

  She scooted around to face him. “Why’d you fight this for so long?”

  “Aside from it being against agency policy and grounds for our dismissal, you mean?”

  Piper grinned. He always had a way of cutting straight to the heart of a matter. “Yeah, aside from that.”

  “Do I really need to remind you what a bad idea it is for me to get involved with a subordinate?” He fell silent, and despite the fact that he never moved a muscle, she felt the emotional distance drift between them.

  She studied him, wondering what it was that held him so deep in thought and said, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for whatever you’ve got running through that head of yours.” When he didn’t respond, she upped her ante. “All right, I’ll make it a hundred and fifty, but that’s my final offer.”

  He looked at her and questioned, “What did you say?”

  “You know, it’s a good thing there isn’t a television down here because you’re doing a fine job of ignoring me without any added distraction.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her against his chest and into a warm if not an entirely convincing embrace. “I was just thinking how complicated we’ve just made our lives.”

  “How so?”

  “We broke the rules, Piper,” he said. His features hardened as he continued to stare at a fixed place on the far side of the room.

  “Oh, right. I forgot what a stickler you are about following company policy.” She didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm. She couldn’t be expected to go from sweet ecstasy to harsh reality in two seconds without suffering from some immediate backlash.

  “I’ve done nothing but break protocol and ignore the rules where you’re concerned.”

  “So I guess it’s my fault for tempting you out of your orderly world.”

  “Discipline and order are important to me. I can’t function without them.”

  “I know that,” she said, clearly noting that he didn’t confirm or deny her previous statement. “Maybe you’ve learned better control over that part of you, but I still find myself craving human contact every so often.”

  “Like the man in the cabin?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Exactly like the man in the cabin. I was just a woman to him, nothing more, nothing less.” Until the very end, that is, when she’d realized that even Miguel had a personal agenda, a very dangerous almost deadly one for her.

  Carter kissed her shoulder, his lips lingering against her skin as he spoke, “You are so much more than just a woman to me.” For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt reconciled with all that he’d been through in the last year, and more importantly, all that he still faced. “You always have been. That’s why it’s important you know that my crossing this line with you wasn’t made lightly or in the heat of the moment. I’m not blaming you. I wanted this every bit as much as you did.”

  Hearing that eased her sense of responsibility and made her next move an easy one. “I’ll understand if you want to end it once we leave this room.”

  Carter scooted back to get a better look at her. “You can do that? Detach yourself from this that easily?” He sounded surprised if not skeptical.

  “If I have to.” It wasn’t what she wanted as much as what she thought he needed to hear to get through this without beating himself up over it.

  “I told you before I wasn’t looking for a casual hook-up, Piper.”

  “It might not be what you were looking for, but maybe knowing it doesn’t have to go any further will help make whatever this is between us as uncomplicated as possible.”

  She touched his cheek and held his gaze. Looking him straight in the eye, she added, “All I ask in return is that you be up front with me when it’s over and you never feel regret that it happened.”

  In return, his gaze caressed every curve of her face, as if consigning every inch to memory, and he brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Then he smiled—just a little one, but it was a smile nevertheless. “No, P.J., no regrets.” He hoped she’d feel the same way down the road.

  “Oh, one more thing—” she said. “If this is going to be a problem for you once we get back to Washington, my resignation is yours, no questions asked.”

  Carter gave her offer thoughtful consideration—for all of about three seconds. As much as her leaving the agency would simplify matters and clear the path for them to be together, he didn’t want to be the reason she left. “We’ll work something out,” he said around a stifled yawn as he reached for the blanket folded over the foot of the bunk. They were together for now, and that, he realized, was all he could ever hope for in this lifetime.

  Chapter Seven

  Piper jerked awake with a sharp gasp. In that microburst moment when she’d hovered in that place between sleep and wakefulness, she’d stopped breathing and her heart ceased beating; when it started up again, it pounded like a frightened hummingbird against her ribs.

  She tugged a piece of blanket wadded under her and pulled it over the chilled flesh of her arms. The sonorous hum of the generator and the rhythmic whumping of the ventilation fan helped lull her breathing back to normal and gave her pause to ponder. She hadn’t been startled awake for any of the usual reasons, she realized, and the dreams she’d had were as real and reassuring as the man lying next to her.

  She had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but a quick peek at his watch confirmed they’d been out for hours—more than eight by her calculations. No wonder she startled awake. It would appear that she’d found a surefire cure for her chronic insomnia. Safer than sedatives, no doubt about it, but quite possibly just as addictive if her desire to nudge Riggs awake for another dose was any indication.

  Necessity overruled her reluctance to leave his side. Piper extricated herself from Riggs’s relaxed embrace and hotfooted to the bathroom.

  She snatched a handful of protein bars and two bottles of water from the larder, then snagged the white dress shirt from the floor on her return. After scarfing down one of the peanut butter bars and half a bottle of water, she slipped her arms into the shirtsleeves and buried her face in the soft folds of the luxurious fabric. Aside from the way it caressed her skin, she loved the intoxicating combination of Riggs’s scent integrated with hers permeating the fibers. She’d always pooh-poohed the notion of undetectable human pheromones promoting sexual attraction. She just might have to rethink her opinion on the subject, she decided with an enigmatic grin.

  “What is it with you?” Riggs questioned. “Now that I couldn’t care less if you trot around buck naked, you suddenly turn shy and cover up?”

  “It’s cold in here,” she explained, hugging the shirt possessively around her.

  He smiled and held out his arms, waggling his fingers in a come-hither invitation to rejoin him. “Come here and I’ll warm you up.”

  Piper took a playful step back and cast him a teasing dark glint with a toss of her head.

  “Come here,” he demanded.

  She tossed a protein bar at him like she was feeding a hungry bear at the zoo and shook her head defiantly as she watched him scoot to the edge of the bed and pick up her offering. He chowed it down faster than she had.

  A hot flush of desire washed over her as he licked his fingers and stood. Even naked, Carter Riggs projected a powerful presence she found impossible to ignore. If their time together was limited, as she suspected it would be, then she intended on savoring every minute to its fullest.

  She stood transfixed and watched with unabashed fascination as he advanced. The strong, developed muscles in his thighs and calves shifted and stretched as she continued backing up, keeping herself out of his grasp, just to watch him move. It was the elemental man who stalked her with
the stealth of a jungle cat. Blatant desire softened his determined features, however, leaving her wanting him more than ever. She ceased her retreat and waited with bated breath as he closed the gap.

  Just as he reached her, an insistent shriek split the silence and tore them apart.

  “What is that?” she shouted over the sudden din.

  “A security alarm,” he answered, moving toward the digital panel near the exit door.

  “There’s someone in the house?” she questioned. The maddening sound drove her to cover her ears.

  “Unlikely,” he said, shaking his head as he peered at the digital readout screen that flashed a yellow warning. “It’s a perimeter alarm, “he explained over the intermittent squeal as he compared the flashing error message readout against the corresponding legend.

  Piper couldn’t take it any longer. She shoved him out of the way and punched a four-digit code into the numeric keypad. The beeping promptly ceased, leaving a peculiar, empty silence in its discordant wake.

  “You do realize you’re obligated to tell me how you know that code,” Carter remarked as he snatched his shorts off the floor.

  “A girl has to have some secrets,” she said.

  Carter grabbed her around the waist and pinned her against the wall where he leaned in real close and whispered, “I know ways to make you talk.” He finished his remark with an unhurried, openmouthed kiss.

  The second their lip-fest ended, he disappeared into a side room and returned with two 9mm Beretta Brigadiers. He handed her one and tucked the other into his waistband at his back.

  “I’m going with you,” she announced.

  He eyed her from head to toe. “Not dressed like that,” was his immediate response. The abundant white cotton of his oversized shirt did absolutely nothing to hide the fact she wasn’t wearing a stitch underneath. The tempting shadows of dark olive-skinned nipples and areola were delicately outlined through the finely woven fabric.